Project Leadership and Systems Design Courses

Engineers are good at designing systems to meet technical specifications. Project managers are good at developing and executing project plans. But most technical teams and project leaders lack a key set of skills: working in the messy, unpredictable, conflict-ridden realm of people. These courses from Cornell University’s College of Engineering address the human aspects of both of these vital disciplines: designing products and services to be used and enjoyed by people, and leading, motivating, influencing, and communicating with project teams that consist of people from a variety of functional areas and backgrounds. These programs are practical and transformative, and they will forever change the way you approach any project.

Getting Started on Product and Service Design

COURSE ID: CESYS501

Monitoring and Controlling Projects

COURSE ID: CEPL506

When errors, misses, over-runs and problems occur during projects, a balanced, measured response from the project leader is critical. If you underreact, stakeholders will begin to doubt your effectiveness. If you overreact, your teams will be in fear, crushing any creative effort and stifling information sharing. In this course, authored by Cornell Instructor Robert Newman, you will examine the human elements of project monitoring and control and review common errors that occur on projects. You’ll learn how to ask the right questions and improve team connectedness.

Planning and Managing Resources

COURSE ID: CEPM502

Assessing, Managing, and Mitigating Project Risk

COURSE ID: CEPM503

Using Earned Value Management for Project Managers

COURSE ID: CEPM504

Managing Conflict on Project Teams

COURSE ID: CEPL505

As a project leader you need to be able to distinguish between when conflict is healthy and when it’s damaging to relationships and productivity. In this course, authored by Cornell Instructor Robert Newman, you’ll learn to identify various causes and sources of conflict and learn to foster healthy disagreement within a project team.

Leading Project Teams

COURSE ID: CEPL504

Seasoned project leaders sometimes apply the same leadership approach to every situation. In this course, authored by Cornell Instructor Robert Newman, you’ll explore a number of leadership styles to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses. You’ll learn how to manage safety concerns, when to be directly coercive, and see how creative collaboration and a shot of inspiration can turn things around for a team.

After taking this course, you’ll be ready to employ a particular style or model of leadership just as a carpenter would a tool. Does the occasion call for a hammer or a saw? Every style of leadership has its merits and its place. Find out what style works best for the situation.

Turning Groups Into Teams

COURSE ID: CEPL503

Getting skilled people to behave and perform as high-functioning teams can be a challenge. In this course, you’ll take a look at how teams tend to progress, what might impact motivation and engagement, and how culture can influence behaviors and results.

This course, authored by Cornell Instructor Robert Newman, will show you how the fundamentals as taught by top researchers like Frederick Herzberg, Bruce Tuckman, and Meredith Belbin can help turn a group of workers into a high-performing team.

Communicate Well to Drive Project Outcomes

COURSE ID: CEPL502

Even experienced project leaders often find that regular meetings and status updates don't lead to meaningful communication. When the team doesn't fully understand project goals or how the work is going to get done, that lack of clarity will have a direct impact on whether the project is on time, within budget, and will lead to quality output. At the same time, team members may mislead you about their progress. Stakeholders may not always explain their expectations. Customers may be unclear about what they want and need. What's going wrong? And how can a project leader do better?

In this course, authored by Cornell Instructor Robert Newman, you will examine typical project-related communication problems and explore practical strategies for overcoming them. You’ll learn to host kick-offs and lead meetings that actually guide the team toward successful outcomes. You will practice communicating with a fresh, even sometimes unfamiliar, perspective in order to bring about productive and high-functioning working relationships.

Leverage Emotional Intelligence for Project Results

COURSE ID: CEPL501

Even experienced project leaders will ask themselves “Why won’t people listen to me?” or “What went wrong with my plan?” Of all the skills critical to project leadership, emotional intelligence may be the most important—and least understood.

In this course, you will learn to identify, analyze, and manage emotions, both yours and your team members’.

It is a common mistake among project leaders to focus too heavily on the mechanics of project management while neglecting the critical people skills that keep everyone engaged and working harmoniously. In this course, from Robert Newman of Cornell’s College of Civil and Environmental Engineering, project leaders will explore concepts of emotional intelligence and practice skills relevant to managing emotions so that they can enjoy better project outcomes. You will focus on five critical aptitudes: communication, relationship management, decision making, conflict management, and motivation.